From being an Abandoned who had rarely left the Hollowed Grounds, to embracing the call of adventure, to dying and being reborn first as an Ascended and then as an Ancient, Maea has gone through quite the amount of changes in her life. One thing remains common, though, in her attempts to find out just where she belongs; she’s always had a craving for knowledge which has brought her to so many places and to meet so many people here in Caido. We can’t wait to see what else is in store for her!
Congratulations, Maea!
Credits
Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
Skinning and hosting by the epically talented Kaons, and functionality fanciness by the coding magic of Neowulf. If you ever see either of them around, make sure to show them some love!
Crossing his arms, Remi could only grin, trying to lean heavily into their easy banter to distract his mind from...well. All the places that it seemed to want to linger and go without his permission. "Something tells me that if I cuffed you to anything you would probably be able to get free. And I doubt this wagon goes anywhere without your say so."
Remi watched with a bemused smile as Ianto told off the softly fluttering balls of light. Nose crinkling slightly with an embarrassing question, Remi poked his head out of the shutters and watched the lights as they pulsed and bobbed. "Are they...alive?" He asked bashfully, knowing it was probably quite the stupid thing to be ignorant of.
but it does you no good
Coding base by Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
The grin that Ianto shot Remi was purposely wicked in a multitude of ways, and he tipped the other man a wink from his place leaning against the counter. "You'd be quite right, Remi. See, even though you don't remember me, you're learnin' very quickly indeed." He chuckled, shifting over a bit to give the alchemist room to stand beside him as they watched the lights bob and dance and chase each other.
"Hm? They're alive enough, yeah. Will-o-wisps, they're called. Be careful of them, though. They're funny little blights, but they're tricksters. They'll lead you astray in the forest if you follow them." He blew gently, sending one of the wisps fluttering away from the wagon.
That grin made Remi's knees which in strange duplicitous sorts of ways and he found himself having to look away as something like a laugh welled up in the back of his throat. "Ahh but the real question is whether you would let me think I had managed to pin you down, even if you were cuffed and could get away." He said, cheeks flushing pink as he stared very decidedly in the opposite direction.
Oh. So they were alive. At the description, Remi turned a slightly-less pink face towards Ianto with both eyebrows raised. "Now who does that sound like?" He asked with a grin.
but it does you no good
Coding base by Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Tch, that's an easy answer. For you? Anything." Ianto smirked, glancing at Remi just as he glanced away, which only caused the fox's smile to grow ever so slightly. At the question he chuckled, waving an imperious hand acting as though he had no idea what Remi was talking about. "Some awful rogue, no doubt. Not like me at all, I'm an upstandin' merchant."
Leaning comfortably against the counter, Ianto let himself enjoy the sounds of the forest in the twilight, though he did eventually glance to the other man. "You are very nervous around me," he said slowly. "More so now that you know I'm not some ghoul. Is there something I can do, to make you more comfortable?"
Remi's stomach did a strange little flop hearing those words. He couldn't tell if it was because of how easily and quickly the fox had said them, if it was simply this strange sort of bald flattery that he was so unaccustomed to, or if it was because he found himself desperately wanting to believe that the sentiment was true. Either way, Remi's lips tugged apart in a rather embarrassingly wide smile that he tried to contain by biting the inside of his cheek and when that failed, running his hand through the scruff on his chin.
"Upstanding, mm?" Remi repeated with a roguish look up and down the fox. "You mean more than just your posture, yes?"
As the stillness descended Remi found himself relaxing ever so slightly. He even managed not to tense as Ianto's stare fell upon him, though as the merchant made his observation, Remi heard himself audibly inhale as he blinked stupidly out into the night. "Oh, you noticed that did you." He said with a shy glance towards the fox, before appearing to quite studiously watch one of the will o' wisps flit by. Even so the alchemist was quite sure that if the fox looked he'd be able to see Remi's heart thundering against the thin fabric of his shirt.
Too flustered to speak for a moment, Remi was keenly aware of the seconds ticking by but his mind had gone entirely blank. "You..." He began, though he had no idea really where he was meant for his sentence to go. You're too hard to look at? You said you wanted to have sex with me again and I can't get those words to stop ringing in my ears? Giving up as the words entirely stalled on his lips, he offered the fox a helpless and ruffled glance as he took a quick breath and sighed it out. "I do not mean to." He said lamely.
but it does you no good
Coding base by Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Oh, absolutely," Ianto said with an amused laugh. "I'm very by the book, don't you know. Whoever this person you're reminded of, it certainly can't be me." And the positively vulpine grin on his face was just coincidence. Uh huh. Ianto's smile faded by degrees as the silence stretched out between them, and he couldn't read Remi, not like he thought he'd been able to before. The man beside him was tied in so many knots, he barely knew where to begin.
"I know you don't," he said quietly, straightening up from the counter and brushing a lock of coppery hair out of his face. "You're a different man to the one I met in Northaven. You were nervous then too, but... for a different reason, I think. Now you seem bruised. Afraid of things goin' wrong, rather than afraid of them happenin' at all. Help me out and tell me I'm bein' an idiot if I'm off track, please?"
"I wonder what book that would be." Remi quipped back easily, the banter making his heart flutter with a sort of happiness that, barring Ronin's return, Remi hadn't felt in sometime.
For a stunned second, Remi could only stare at Ianto with his brows softly dancing as a multitude of expressions shifted across his face. Surprise, disbelief, gratitude? That Remi himself was positively tongue-tied about the contents of his own mind was one thing, but that the fox seemed to be able to read it all so clearly despite how he'd claimed Remi had changed was...well. It was a number of things that Remi couldn't quite put words to.
"That...yes, I think.." He stammered, turning to face Ianto but letting his eyes dip to the ledge. "I aahhh—" Remi tried again, running a hand boyishly across his face and through his curls as he tried to force his mind to find a way to explain. But what was he supposed to say that wouldn't just sound horribly cliche? Oh well you know about Loren and how that turned out, and then I met someone here and things were fine until they weren't because he decided I was too much of a bother to keep loving and forgot me. And then my bestfriend died and though he has just come back and so you think everything is fine, nothing seems like it is. So I'm just a tad damaged at the moment.
But he didn't say that. He didn't say anything at all actually as he created a finger in hands and began to softly twirl it back and forth. I...can't fall in love with you. He thought, knowing that at least his mental voice wouldn't shake the way that his lips would.
but it does you no good
Coding base by Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Perhaps I'll write it some time, and then I'll be able to tell you," Ianto quipped back with a snort of laughter; that in itself was testament to how crooked he was, in truth. But suddenly their easy camaraderie had drifted to a finish, or so it seemed, and Ianto watched Remi with a worried frown on his face, as if concerned he might have accidentally frightened him away.
The silence drew out and Ianto worried his lower lip between his teeth, before suddenly the alchemist's voice echoed in his head clear as a bell. Eyes widening, he couldn't help the gentle, boyish smile that tugged at his lips. "I'm not... I don't know if it works like that, Remi," he murmured. "But I think I know what you're saying. Do you think maybe it would be better if we didn't spend so much time together for a while?"
It was probably for the best that Remi kept his gaze firmly focused on the warbled ovals of woodgrain on the ledge. The look on Ianto's face would likely have driven him either straight into the fox's arms or out of the now-open window. Neither of which would likely help them out of this conversation.
I do not think it does either. He answered, his mental voice perhaps the same volume as it always had been—it was rather hard to think in different volumes—but it sounded much more reserved. Shy. Honest.
Sharply though the fox's suggestion drew Remi's stare, his expression one of surprise and unhappiness. Ianto was only giving voice to the obvious solution, but still the alchemist felt cold waves of regret sloshing about. "No." He said out loud, louder and more forcefully than he meant to. Clearing his throat apologetically, his lashes fluttering as he fixed his gaze self-consciously somewhere near Ianto's shoulder, he shook his head. "As if that would help." He mumbled, cheeks reddening, because, if it wasn't already obvious enough, it was probably too late.
but it does you no good
Coding base by Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"At least you still have the advantage of reservations," Ianto said airily, smiling somewhere out of the shutters and into the night. "It's a bit late for me. It's alright, though." It sounded like it too, the fox seeming content just to have Remi there with him, in whatever capacity he wanted to be. Blue eyes flicking back to the alchemist at the force of which he said no, Ianto smiled without meaning to. "Well when you put it like that..." He rubbed at the back of his head, letting out a long sigh.
"I'm sorry that everything seemed to go to shit for you the second you set foot in Caido. I was out here all this time. If I'd just... if I'd landed in there instead of out here..." He shrugged. "Who knows. I might not have made any difference."
The feather in Remi's hand twirled and then stopped, falling to the ground as the alchemist's gaze rose. It took him a moment to comprehend what it was the fox had said, but when he did, his gaze searched the roguish lines of his friends face as his fingers trembled uselessly without the feather to keep them occupied.
"You would have made all the difference." Remi said immediately but softly, kneeling down to grab the feather if only to give his mind a respite from the twitterpated and uneven flutters of his heart. Rising slowly, feather spinning once again within his fingers, Remi swallowed down the rising flood of uncertainty that he felt, no longer concerned about the heat in his cheeks given the feathers in his hair.
but it does you no good
Coding base by Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"You think so?" Ianto fidgeted with one of the rings on his fingers, pursing his lips for a moment. "Things would have turned out a lot differently for me, put it that way," he said, glancing around at the wagon before letting his gaze land back on Remi. He let the alchemist retrieve his feather in peace, though as he straightened back up with it Ianto couldn't stop himself stepping forward, gently cupping his hands around Remi's if he would allow it.
"I don't want you to feel uncomfortable around me," he mumbled. "Last time, you literally flew away, so... I guess this is an improvement. But still. I don't like makin' you feel like this. Like somethin' bad is about to happen. Did you really get so used to things going wrong in there?"
Remi winced with affection and concern, his head tilting slightly to the side. Here he'd been thinking of how he could have coped with the loss of Loren so much more easily with the fox around, that perhaps things wouldn't have gone the way that they had with someone like Ianto with him...all the while forgetting what had happened to the merchant on his side of the barrier. Guiltily Remi's eyes scanned over the leather collar as he bit the inside of his lip, shame now tinging the blush on his cheeks. Selfish. When had he become so selfish?
Standing to find Ianto much closer, Remi could only inhale a surprised O of air, his hands indeed clasped by the fox (feathering slightly across the top of his hand). Holding the breath with a wariness that he tried to still, Remi tried to shake his head slightly. "It isn't.." He tried to say, trailing off helplessly. It wasn't uncomfortable. It was...
It was...?
Glancing again at the collar before sweeping his eyes up to stare into ones so blue that it seemed to hurt, Remi's fingers trembled slightly in Ianto's. "Ludo only took those that I loved from me." He said softly, eyes dipping down again. "..and..." Swallowing, his mouth too dry to speak, he finished silently; I do not want to lose you again.
but it does you no good
Coding base by Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Where Remi's fingers trembled, Ianto's hands were steady, and though there was an unmistakeable flush to the fox's cheeks, he didn't seem at all embarrassed about it. Life was too short, and Ianto's was too uncertain at the best of times since landing in the Greatwood. Seize the day and all that. "Oh...?" His eyes widened a fraction, then, and a lopsided smile spread across his face without his permission; he obviously hadn't known about that caveat to Ludo's curse.
Still, as he heard Remi out, the fox shook his head as if utterly confident that it wouldn't happen. "You won't," he said simply. "If you do, I'll just come back to you again, and we'll start again. Ludo will get bored eventually. And if it gets too big for its raggedy boots, I'll bribe it to leave you alone."
